Pink Ego Box
by projectMUSE
Summary: Bella slips Edward her e-mail at a coffee shop. He doesn't know who she is, but the unknown can be alluring. ExB, all human. NOT ANOTHER ANNOYING I.M. FIC - I SWEAR TO GOD.
1. It's Gonna Be Okay

**Chapter One – It's gonna be okay.**

**Meet Edward Cullen.**

_EPOV_

I woke up to a thud.

That would be Emmett's clock hitting the wall. It was a daily occurrence in the condo. I really should have made him find his own place. I didn't have to be at work until nine, but once I woke up, sleep was unreachable until the sun had set.

Sometimes I hated my roommate.

Not that Emmett McCarty wasn't a good guy, he really was. It was only the fact that his job as a security guard in the nearby mall needed him there at six. As in six a.m. In the morning. This meant that each morning I would spend the time between five thirty and quarter after eight tossing and turning.

I really needed to read more. Maybe if I had a book it would make this more tolerable. I should have made Emmett make one more exception to his 'macho bachelor pad extravaganza' rule, and put in a bookshelf. At least I would have bought some books if there was a shelf staring at me all the time, waiting to be filled.

As I listened to the running water – which was causing a weird sound to come from the pipes, we'd need to get that checked out – I thought back to when we first bought the condo. Neither one of us had any financial difficulty (our fathers worked side by side as emergency room surgeons), but we had decided to room together. Recently I had found that this may not have been the best idea. Along with Emmett's painfully early start to the workday, he also had a tendency to host sleepovers. With women. Loud sleepovers, that often involved his bed banging against the wall at various hours of the night.

My first clue should have been the macho bachelor pad extravaganza idea. Emmett had clearly explained to me that this would apparently please the women – I had refrained from pointing out that if the women had already made it to the house, they probably didn't need to be pleased. The rule was that anything that wasn't considered macho was not allowed.

Naturally, the first thing I did was make sure there was room for a full-out Bose music system. I didn't open a music store because I didn't like music. The second thing I did was force Emmett to let me keep my piano – though he'd forced me to keep it in my room and out of sight. I was fine with that, I didn't want Emmett and one of his various partners doing the deed on something I would have to touch with my bare hands. My electric guitar and base were easily accepted, and were in fact allowed in plain view in the living room. He'd made it his goal to purchase the biggest amp that would fit in there, what with most of the space being taken up by our leather sofa (which was the full length of the long wall), our huge high-definition TV (his birthday present to himself), and the various game systems (all Emmett's, except the X-Box 360, which was mine). There wasn't even room for my stereo in there, so I set it up, surround-sound and all, in my room. Thank God I'd convinced him to give me the larger one.

The condo was actually fairly roomy (for downtown Seattle, at least). We had a fully functional kitchen, not that we used it to cook. Recently Emmett had been debating taking out the oven for another fridge. I had quickly pointed out that he had to cook his frozen pizzas somewhere, and that our parents often came to town to see us. It didn't matter which mom found out, both my mother Esme and his mother Ellen would have the exact same reaction. They'd throw a fit, then call the other, who would end up flying out and throwing a fit as well, before calling someone to take out the fridge and put in an oven. Cooking classes would probably ensue.

That wasn't the problem, though. I knew how to cook. I could cook well, according to my mother, who was tough to please. On the other hand, I _was_ her son, and I'd heard stories of her eating eggshell cookies made by a much younger Edward and telling me they were divine.

-=-=-

"Hey, man, I'm gone!" Emmett yelled, pounding on my door.

I groaned, and cursed at him, but he just left, laughing all the while.

I rolled out of my bed then, and headed into the kitchen to make coffee. If I was going to be up at the ungodly hour of quarter to six every weekday, I sure as hell might as well get myself hooked on coffee. I'd been working on forming my addiction for the past couple weeks, and as I poured the last of our Starbucks coffee stuff into the coffee maker and turned it on, I found myself thinking it actually smelled pretty good. I was going to need to either buy another tin or start hanging out at the place, though, if I was really going to start on this coffee thing. Actually, I was going to need to buy a tin anyways. Some people thought Emmett was always happy. These people had not met the man before coffee.

I often joked about it to him after he'd had his fix on the weekends, calling him a bear just out of hibernation. He looked the part, too, with his curly hair, and huge build. Of course, as with most things, Emmett just laughed, and said I looked like a lion, always coming out of my room with my hair all messed up around my face like a mane.

'If I didn't know better, I'd say you had a girl in there,' he'd joked.

From my spot on the couch I heard the coffeemaker beep, signaling that the stuff was done. I grabbed my mug, which had a horrible picture of me on it, that I'd gotten from Emmett for Christmas. Apparently he'd dug through his "blackmail laptop" (a computer which he used only for porn and storing blackmail photos on. He hid it somewhere in the condo, and though I'd searched, I'd never actually found it before) to find the absolute worst pictures of everyone he knew, and then had them all put on mugs to give to said people, with a reminder attached saying that he still had copies saved (Merry Christmas..?). The mug was what had prompted my first search for the blackmail laptop, in an attempt to erase the picture from the Earth.

Filled with coffee, though, even the blackmail mug looked good to me. I must have been succeeding with my attempt at addiction.

Coffee in hand, I flopped down onto the couch, and reached a hand under it to pull out my own laptop. It wasn't hidden – that was simply the most convenient space for it. As I drank, I watched a youtube video. It was a channel where the guy would sit and basically explain the day-to-day news, but he would make it interesting. That way when I heard about it more seriously at a later date, I at least knew something basic. Also, there was this 'douchebag of the day' thing that was kind of amusing.

Having figured out what was going on in the world (kind of), I opened my e-mail inbox. Spam, spam, spam.. e-mail from Esme, spam, e-mail from.. "Rose"? Who was Rose?

Then it hit me. Great. It was Rosalie Hale. The one girl I'd ever dated seriously, though only to please Carlisle, who had set me up with her. What did she want?

Curiosity caused me to click that e-mail first. A quick read-through told me more than I wanted to know. Apparently she was moving to Seattle, and Esme had offered her a place with Emmett and I until she found her own space.

I made a mental note to flip out as Esme at a later date, and opened the e-mail from her.

Esme's e-mail basically said the same thing as Rosalie's, except much more casually, with one add-on at the end:

'P.S.: If I hear that she ended up sleeping on the couch, I will be very disappointed. Love, Mom.'

_Love you too, Esme_, I thought sarcastically, and then typed up a short note saying I got her message and would be in touch with Rosalie. Maybe she could share a room with Emmett, from what I remember, she was platinum blonde, apprenticing as a mechanic, and working part time as a model. Definitely his type.

The couch might be comfortable, but not that comfortable.

With a groan, I shut my laptop and stood. The stress was eating at me, and I figured that I needed a workout or something. Maybe a run, as the gym was probably closed at this hour of the morning. I still had a good three hours before I needed to be at the store, I could get in a good hour and a half, ad still have time to relax a bit before work.

I walked into my room, the coffee's effects starting to kick in, and dressed to go for a run. My running shirt was sitting in the laundry hamper, and I fished it out. It was a workout, it didn't matter if the shirt was clean. I pulled on shorts and shoes, and then began the routine search for my iPod shuffle.

My nano was always in my room, unless I was going out of town. I knew that for certain. It had pretty much every song I'd ever liked on it, and it's memory was completely full. The shuffle, on the other hand, was for the songs I was listening to at the moment, and my running music. I hadn't synced it in a while, though, so I knew it had my running tunes on it. It was just a matter of finding the damn tiny thing in the house.

After a good fifteen minutes of looking, I found it, and a few of my CD's that I hadn't been able to find recently, in Emmett's room. I'd have to ask him about that later. I grabbed my key, and locked the door behind me before threading it onto my shoelace and tying that shoe.

Then I was lost to the world. I was heading towards downtown at a brisk jog, music blaring and paying attention to nothing but breathing in and out. My muscles protested and protested. Then came the one moment that I lived my life for. The moment when my body fell into place, and suddenly nothing was telling me to stop, only to go. Go faster, go farther, just go.

My entire being screamed to just go until I disappeared from the Earth forever.


	2. I Can't Afford Another Day

**I can't afford another day**

**Meet Bella**

_BPOV_

I woke up to Renee's knock on my door. "Bella?" she called, gently but firmly in that way that only a mother can. "You need to get up, hon."

In my normal fashion, I rolled out of my bed and onto the floor while trying to get out of the bed. It was hopeless to try and get out unscathed; I was notorious for writhing in my sleep and getting tangled in the sheets, and apparently I had no inner ear, or whatever it was that helps your balance.

Honestly, it was a good start to the day. Hitting the floor jolted me out of my sleep faster than anything else possibly could, and I needed to be awake for school.

I heard Renee's steps going back down the hall, she knew that once she heard a thud, I was up for the day.

I groaned and rolled off of the blanket that I'd pulled down with me. Then I stood, and gathered up some clothes for the day, and put my laptop and a couple of books into my bag. I was studying for a culinary degree, and I had thought the laptop would be pointless, but Renee had insisted I would need it anyways

She'd been right. The laptop was crucial for me. It had my entire life in it. Losing it would be losing my life, no joke. I couldn't just replace it. Renee and I were the only ones living in the house – my parents were divorced and my father Charlie still lived in Forks. Mom had wanted out of the state, but settled on moving to Seattle so that they could share custody. The two of us lived on her salary as a kindergarten teacher, and the salary of my weekend job at a restaurant. We didn't get much, neither of us had a car because of my tuition, and even the laptop was pushing our budget.

I had always felt guilty, but Renee told me that I was going through college even if she died of starvation to make it happen. The honesty in her eyes as she said that still scared me.

After I'd gotten through the normal routine (shower, dress, eat, etc.), I stepped outside to find Alice Brandon, my long-time best friend, pulling up in front of my house. As per usual. The girl was basically a psychic. No joke. She had always been like that, predicting which exams I would fail in high school (always Calculus, and a various assortment of others), the weather, and other basic things. Lately, though, it seemed she had transformed. From the time I left high school and spent the summer with Renee to the time she'd come out for college, everything about her seemed _more_. She seemed shorter, paler, more beautiful next to me than before, along with her ability to predict things having intensified about a hundred times. She'd started predicting stock market trends, and was making enough money off that alone to totally pay for her tuition, which was good, because her parents had died at a young age, and her foster family practically kicked her out the day she turned eighteen.

She always denied this change, though, saying that I just hadn't seen her in awhile. I noticed, though, that I couldn't seem to find any pictures of her anywhere. Not in her apartment, not in my house, nowhere. But whatever, I wasn't going to stress over it. She was my best friend, after all. My only friend.

Who was sitting in her secondhand green Porsche from the eighties. Thank God we both went to the Art Institute of Seattle, I wouldn't be able to get anywhere without her, let alone survive.

"How's the lean green driving machine?" I asked her with a laugh. It was the car's unofficial name. It's official one was the Grinch, though I never understood why. Apparently there was a long story behind it that involved the movie, and the car breaking down (as it was prone to do).

Alice wrinkled her nose. "Getting me from point A to point B. How was your break?"

It was my turn to wrinkle my nose as I buckled my seatbelt. "I worked a lot. And by a lot, I mean a _lot_. I actually had to work from nine to nine one day. But it paid for the Easter dinner, so I can't complain."

Alice went to talk, but I cut her off. "No, you are not investing my money in the stock market for me. You know I don't trust it."

"Whatever floats your boat," Alice said with a laugh. We'd been through this quite a bit. "And speaking of boats, guess who pushed Richie Rich kid off his yacht?" She smiled proudly.

I gasped. "You did NOT."

"You should have seen the look on Mike's face!" Alice said, now laughing much harder.

Mike Newton was one of the wealthier families in Forks, and he never let anyone forget it. He hosted an annual Easter party on his yacht, the only time when people would pretend to tolerate him, and up to this year people had only tried to get someone to push him off. Leave it to Alice to actually do it. The pixie could be evil.

I was openly laughing now too, the stress of the holidays wearing off. Alice was great for that. I found myself slipping back into my usual self, and her doing the same, as we gossiped over everything and nothing on the way to campus.

As we headed home at the end of the day, we were both laughing again. It was nice to be back in school, as strange as that was. It had been an easy day, I hadn't gotten any work to do outside of class, except that I had to look over the essay that was due the next day once more.

"And you know that Jessica girl?" Alice asked. I shook my head no. The fact that we were in two totally different fields led to a lot of these kinds of discussions. "Well, she's the girl always sitting on the rock outside the school. She always wears these way-too-short – oh, that'd be her," she said, pointing to a girl, who was indeed seated on a large rock, and wearing a mini-skirt that was too short for anything, ever.

"What about her?" I asked.

"Well, in the middle of our computer design class, Jessica made a complete fool of herself in front of Mr. Ryan."

Ah, the notorious Gordon. I had heard much about this guy, most of it being that he was young and only on a one-year contract. Oh, and not married. Apparently he was the spitting image of the guy who played Superman. Which, if this were true, was amazing. I nodded, and she continued.

"So, he decided to offer individual help, and she raised her hand for him to come over, and when he got there, she was on Facebook too, which was bad enough, but – oh, shit!"

Alice grabbed my arm and took an unnecessarily sharp detour onto a path that lead back to campus.

"What was that all about?" I asked.

"Jasper Whitlock almost walked into you." Alice whispered, looking over her shoulder to check for him. "And you know how that would end up. We would meet then, me and him. And I need to meet him in the bar, or it won't work out. I'm going to marry that boy, Bella. It's fate."

As much as I thought Alice was able to tell the future, this Jasper Whitlock thing had gone all out of whack. She'd been avoiding him since the start of the school year, insisting that she had to meet him in the bar or she'd screw it all up.

I was a skeptic, and she knew it.

The moment of urgency had passed, then, and Alice grinned. "You up for some Starbucks?"

"Am I ever not?" I asked with the same grin. She could figure out for herself that fate wasn't something that existed outside of romance novels.

**-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-**

**Hey guys, it's me. Sorry about the author's note. I just wanted to thank my one reviewer so far: evil and superbly ninja. **

**As well, I just wanted to say that it does indeed get better, these are the intros of the characters. As well, criticism is appreciated. If nobody tells me my writing sucks, how do I know?**

**Thanks for reading, **

**projectMUSE.**


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